


By the light of fireflies and snow

by orphan_account



Category: Hikaru no Go
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-08-06
Updated: 2009-08-06
Packaged: 2017-10-13 02:26:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/131806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A quick character sketch of Yashiro, exploring his relationship to his parents and to igo.</p>
            </blockquote>





	By the light of fireflies and snow

  
Except for the rough musical dialect of children tumbling through the neighbourhood playground, your home in Kansai could be many places in Japan. The street is suburban, visually pleasing in that familiar, proper way: every car washed, every dog advertised with a restrained BEWARE OF- sign beside the relevant front gate. The families in residence all comprise the correct number and gender of adults and children.

Your parents drive to work. Every morning your father puts on a crisp pressed shirt and one of his five ties (they are all restrained in colour and pattern); your mother in turn wears a thin, woollen cardigan and black leather flats. They eat breakfast fully dressed; you, on the other hand, shove spoonfuls sugared cereal into your mouth while in your pyjamas, unshowered and bleary-eyed.

It's two parts subtle defiance, three parts simply you being you. You are not like your parents, but like most teenagers you try harder than is necessary to be unlike them.

By most measures your home in Kansai is pleasant and privileged. Surprisingly your parents do not mind your late-morning waking; they tolerate with shocking benevolence both your white hair and your tendency to disappear for long hours at a time; they bought you your Xbox no questions asked. Adolescents must be adolescents, is the implication; be a teenager as much as you like. _But grow up to be a proper adult._

~~~

Most children, eventually, break their parents' hearts.

~~~

You like rules because rules create possibilities. There are 361 places on a goban; place one stone and the choices go down to 360. Add a constraint - _I wish to win_ , and the pathways are narrower still. Begin at _tengen_ and there are a million ways to win, but there are not an infinite number of ways.

 _Igo_ is a cage; _igo_ is an abstract palisade, a mathematical prison; _igo_ is the resistance you have always needed to strive against, to be yourself.

~~~

What your parents do not understand: the child is father of the man. What we love as boys we love forever.

~~~

If you envy Touya Akira and Shindou Hikaru, it is not for their talent or friendship but rather their lack of _options_ (isn't that a form of talent in itself, or possibly genius, Isumi suggests). How it's so bloody simple for them. Their narrowness of ambition, their startling lack of imagination, that unidirectional unthinking laser-like focus (the board, the black and white, today and tomorrow and next week and next year and--)

(“You want to play a game for a living,” said your father.)

(“People do. I get _paid_.”)

(and okay sometimes you envy Shindou's talent as well.)

But what you envy most, you also envy least. You do not wish for obstacles -- you thrive on them.

You need them.

(and the breaking of hearts is inevitable. Some people call it growing up.)


End file.
